A new tower at Plano Children's Hospital will triple the number of beds. Take a look inside
A nearly complete new tower at Children's Medical Center Plano will allow the hospital to grow with Collin County.
Less than two months after the eight-story tower's opening date, Graham Torres, vice president of facilities operations for Children's Health, compared the final weeks to moving into a newly constructed home.
“We're at the stage where we've sent the proverbial U-Haul to the back of the house,” he said.
As Torres led reporters through the 300,000-square-foot tower Thursday, workers set up computers and moved equipment. The new space will nearly double the capacity of Plano Children's Medical Center's emergency department and triple the number of beds on campus to 212 beds.
Collin County has experienced years of rapid growth. Vanessa Walls, Chief Market Executive of Children's Health, said the hospital expansion will allow the system to keep pace – and offer more services to surrounding areas.
“We look at the Plano campus as kind of a hub, if you will, for the care that's being provided up north,” she said. “So people who live in Prosper, Frisco, McKinney, for example – all those areas have easier access to the care they want and need closer to home.”
Plano Children's Medical Center will open its new tower in December. This allows the hospital to expand six specialist care programs:
- Pauline Allen Gill Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders
- The Heart Center
- Surgical services
- Neurology
- Lung diseases
- Gastroenterology
The tower also offers space for up to twelve operating rooms and an eating disorder department with twelve beds.
Torres said he hopes everyone who sees the new tower can see the intention behind the design.
“This didn't happen by chance,” he said. “There were many thoughtful conversations about how we allocated every square inch, and ultimately the priority was to maximize square footage for patient care.”
Hospital leadership consulted with patients and their families to provide their input on designs, hospital furnishings and facilities. The tower includes outdoor balconies, rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, work space for patients' families and healthy food options to go.
“What we heard from our patient families was that they weren't looking for the wow factor,” Torres said. “They are here at a very critical time and a very stressful time for the care of their child.”
The rooms are equipped with virtual whiteboards so medical providers can update and communicate with providers in real time. The televisions have hookups so patients can play video games; patients can also change the color of their room lighting.
“We wanted to find all those moments and opportunities to give the patient control over their environment,” Torres said.
The tower also features unique designs surrounding animal mascots assigned to each floor, reflecting different regions of Texas.
The new space will open on December 10.
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